


final bell

by rielity (snowdrops)



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Canon Timeline, F/M, Getting Together, Graduation, Introspection, Series Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 03:37:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8649976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdrops/pseuds/rielity
Summary: He's fearful of showing weakness, and she's fearful of being used. Yet when he finds himself falling in love with her, the only thought he has is: finally.





	

One year teaches you a lot of things, Chiba muses as he sits in the chair, holding his diploma just as he held his sniper rifle barely twelve hours ago.

One year teaches you the basics of assassination, the art of killing someone. One year teaches you the value of life and the art of living.  
  
One year teaches you the beauty of a gun, its lethal power. One year teaches you how to kill, one year teaches you how to heal from your own scars.  
  
One year teaches you to make right all that you did wrong, and to take chances you never dared take before.  
  
One year teaches you what it means to fall in love.  
  
They meet on the first day of class 3-E.

The classroom is sombre, a doomsday marking hanging heavy in the air. The End class. For various reasons they've been gathered here, a sacrificial lamb to Asano-sensei's educational beliefs. They introduce themselves - all 25 of them, and her name merely drifts past his ears as a passing whisper. He's never been good at remembering faces, or names for that matter, much less matching names to a face.

He meets her on the first day that class 3-E gathers, but he only sees her two weeks later.  
  
She's standing up, her head bowed as is the rest of the class.

"Yukimura-sensei passed away yesterday," says Asano-sensei. A man comes in, Asano-sensei leaves. Chiba is looking ahead, but not at the adults. He sees a room with bowed heads, a cascading fall of peach in a room of black.

 _What an unusual colour_ , he thinks to himself. _Maybe she's one of those punky kinds who likes to play with colours in her hair_ .  
  
He sees her again as they try their first assault against the octopus, right, Koro-sensei. In his hands, the weight of the gun is unfamiliar; all his life, he's only ever held pens and cameras. But she wields her gun as though she's been holding one her whole life, and the ferocity of her gaze as she shoots BB pellets is something like terrifying. Terrifying, but in some way, enchanting. He can't tear his eyes away. She holds it as though an extension of her own body, with a kind of gracefulness Chiba will never possess.  
  
Maybe she was a dancer, he muses to himself. Not unlikely, given her flexibility and agility, the elegance of her body even when learning the most crass of close combat moves.  
  
Chiba holds the gun like he does his camera. With awe, respect, awareness of its capabilities. To wield a weapon is to know what it can do.

Sniping is quiet. He likes sniping. Under cover of foliage or darkness he can hide from the world, and the only thing he need focus on is his own breathing, and the accuracy of his target. Chiba has never been one for socialising, and right here, is something that he can do himself, something he finds he is half decent at. He shoots, and shoots, and shoots.  
  
The class calls them the sniper duo. It makes sense that they work together.

She is flexible, balancing even in the most precarious of ways, her target sharp and on the mark. He is stable, in position, focused on his job.

They learn to breathe in tandem. Learn the true significance of what they're doing - they're trying to rob their teacher of his life. Their class waves it off so easily, as though it were a walk in the park, or yet another subject they have to learn in school, but for the two of them, the true impact of what they do sinks in just as their attacks miss the mark and Koro-sensei sinks into the water.

The rest of the class hasn't realised it yet, the full weight of what they're doing. But they have. And they've failed, and Chiba feels the same sinking feeling that he did the last day of second year, when he saw his grades and those cruel words: _Promoted to Class 3-E._  
  
But even the one they try to kill still puts his trust in them, and Chiba doesn't know why. He just needs to exchange one look with her, and he knows she doesn't either. But if sensei has faith in them, then they're in no place to let him down. They take out the assassin, and somehow it feels like they've made up for their earlier failure, though it isn't the same. That assassin isn't about to blow up and destroy the Earth. The only similarity, Chiba thinks, is that failure of either mission would result in certain death.  
  
She jerks away the first time he touches her, and in the swirling depths of her eyes he sees for the first time something that is not calm. It is not calm, it is destructive, it is a rampage, a bloodstorm of fear. Something in there whispers, small and helpless, defenceless, _please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me, please don't_ , and he can only smile, as if his smile could stem the ocean of hurt that he sees.

 _I will never hurt you_ , he wants to say, but he's never been good at words and instead draws his hand away. That's why he's here, anyway. He's never liked speaking up, never liked being in conflict. It's what's gotten him trodden over by the class system here, just as she has too.

But somehow, here, in this rambunctious classroom full of people and voices and colours and noise, it ends up always boiling down to two of them, and he finds that he's okay with that.  
  
He's fearful of showing weakness, and she's fearful of being used. Yet when he finds himself falling in love with her, the only thought he has is: _finally_ .  
  
Because even if sniping is a one-man show, somewhere along the way it's gone from _me_ to _us_ , as though she's as natural an addition to his fight as his rifle is. It isn't so much him giving up his space, as it is his space getting wider, just enough to fit her lithe and nubile form.  
  
It is in the first week of winter break that they share their first kiss. The world's just come crumbling down on them, whatever shaky foundations left from the Southern Island incident now fully demolished, but Chiba cannot find it in himself to be surprised. After all, every protagonist carries with him some tragic back story or another, doesn't he? The question is only: is their teacher a protagonist, or an antagonist? He doesn't want to think about an answer, so he doesn't.

Yet even uncertainty doesn't stop him from asking her out for sniping practice, because he's got his eyes on the goal and he knows what they need to do, and she does too. It's when they're sitting together, next to each other, on a park bench, that he reaches out a hand to cover hers. She's grown accustomed to his touch, and she does not flinch. Her hand is cold, but she does not shiver. She looks at him, and he understands. When they kiss there is no magic. Sparks don't fly. It is merely the returning of two halves to a whole.  
  
Then comes the paintball fight, and as with all things, they move as one. For all that Koro-sensei has given them, they both know that the best way to repay him is to prove that he's taught them well.

And then comes hope, and yet again despair, and ultimately, their teacher is slain, not by either of their hands, but by all of theirs.  
  
And so it is here that Chiba sits, his arms folded on his lap, his diploma tightly in hand, and he thinks, this is the end, the end of this phase of life.

Tomorrow marks the start of another chapter. And next to him she sits as well, her features neutral despite the tears he saw her shed last night. And he thinks - Koro-sensei was the one who brought us here, and where we choose to go from here is where he wants us to.

And though he'd sworn to himself when he first entered class 3-E that no, never, he'll walk out of Kunigigaoka High without looking back, without carrying any more remnants of this cruel, ruthless place that left him helpless and hopeless, right now in this moment, he thinks: I want her with me, every step of the way.  
  
He catches her arm as they leave the classroom in that wooden building for the last time. Her wrist is thin, but he knows it bears hidden strength. He pulls her to a side, hidden from sight - their corner, their secret sniping corner, where they snuck off between classes and breaks to do sniping practice - and he doesn't say anything. What is there to say to someone who knows you as you do yourself?

Her eyes are quiet, calm and searching, she doesn't blush when he interlocks their fingers. There is only a whispered breath between them that he swallows, and he wishes her to understand. And she does, because she smiles, ever so faintly, as he presses the button into his hand. There is nothing more to be said. Whatever he needs to say, he's said already.  
  
Theirs is a love born of killing and death. Theirs is a love born of silence and fear. Theirs is a love born of hope and aspiration.

Theirs is a love that none can ever hope to replicate.

**Author's Note:**

> This hell ship dragged me down after I started watching Ansatsu Kyoushitsu and I decided to write this in the middle of the night at 3am lol (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و
> 
> Scream with me about Chihaya here:  
> [tumblr](https://rielity.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/noyabeans)


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